It’s not something that I ever chose and

when I started teaching I didn’t really

think it was that important.

I thought it was most important to have a

deep understanding of the material and so

for my first class I prepared by reading

a bunch of graduate textbooks on the topic,

which turned out to be of no help whatsoever.

And when those course evaluations came back,

that’s what really struck me is that the students

rated my enthusiasm very highly, and

I hadn’t even thought I was very enthusiastic.

I think it just comes out naturally in

how I feel about the topic.

Since then I’ve decided that it’s a great way

to keep people with me and that’s why I do it.

That’s why I don’t try and keep my own

enthusiasm down, because I know different

teachers have different styles, and I think

sometimes I’m a little over the top for some

students; but it’s the only way I know to

keep people on board with what I’m saying.

And I do really love what I do, now that I’ve had

a chance to advise students and see what happens

to them in their lives I’m always sad when I see

a student change his or her major because

he or she wasn’t getting As in it.

And I love physics, I love astronomy, I always have,

and that’s what keeps me coming back every day

and what keeps me going into the classroom.

So, for me, it’s like air, it’s a part of my life.

I think that enthusiasm is different than entertaining.

What I’m passionate about is the

material that I’m teaching.

I’m not passionate about me, and I’m not

passionate about the students, this sounds terrible,

doesn’t it, but I think that if I really cared

about how they were experiencing moment

to moment I would tell more jokes.

I love telling jokes, I love making people laugh,

and I do have to try not to overdo that.

What I am most passionate about is actually

the physics; and I want people to learn, but

I want people to learn it because I love it,

because I think that it’s fascinating and

interesting, and wonderful; it’s intellectual food

that I can’t live without.

So I think for me the difference is that my

number 1 priority that I’m trying to convey

is my enthusiasm about the material.

So I’ll put myself in a bad light.

I’ll make the students uncomfortable.

I’ll do whatever I have to do because it’s

the material that actually comes first for me.

You know, Astronomy 103 is a great example

of what the challenges are.

It’s a great class because people

don’t know what to expect.

What they think it’s going to be coming in is

not what it is, and it’s a great story to tell.

The story of how we know what the insides of stars

are like is a story I will never get tired of telling.

It absolutely knocks my socks off

every single time, and I love it.

But it’s 150 people and the only way to

learn science is to do science, and science

involves measurement, it involves math.

And there’s absolutely no way around that,

and these are folks who don’t want to see math,

they don’t want to talk about measurement,

and it can be really hard.

It’s a lot of grading, it’s a lot of bookkeeping,

and when you have 150 students some fraction

of them get sick or they have a personal tragedy

or they don’t like me and they come and yell at me

or we end up talking about what the grade’s

going to be and redoing this and something

doesn’t work and the website goes down, and all

of the logistics can take some of the joy out of it.

What amazes me the most is that every time

I walk into a classroom and I think, “I’m tired,

you know, I can’t get up for this today.” I do.

Every single time, and every fall when I’m shaking

in my boots, and I’ve been teaching

for 10 years now, I’m shaking in my boots

walking into that classroom and I think,

“I’m not going to remember how to do this.”

It comes back to me the minute I walk in

that classroom every single time.

And I always walk in thinking “I probably

don’t have enough to talk about today.

I’ll let them go early.”

I think in 10 years I’ve never let a class go early.

And that’s what makes it great for me,

is the classroom, that environment, I love.

And I will be sad if the day comes that we decide

as an academic community that the classroom

has no role in education, because to me there are

magical things that happen in the classroom

that don’t happen any place else.

And some of my best ideas, some of the things that

have worked the greatest were improv, in the moment.

And I don’t know any other place like it.

Well, definitely trying new things.

I’m always trying new things, sometimes to keep

my enthusiasm running, a lot of times by necessity.

That’s not to say that it’s not a little

rough around the edges sometimes; it is,

and you know, experiments don’t always pan out.

But I think it gives me the sense that I’m down

in the trenches with the students, and when

it doesn’t work I’m just as bummed as they are

and I want them to learn, and when it works,

when I ask a hard question and a flood of right

answers comes back I mean that’s fantastic for me

because I’m right down there with them.

When my teaching gets not fun, when I know it’s

not effective is when I’m just doing something

I’ve already done, when I’m not really engaged,

so I keep myself engaged by trying new stuff.

I got Cs in physics as an undergrad, like more than one;

and at one point I had the lowest grade in the class.

And I got As in a lot of other stuff, and no one

would have blamed me for changing my major,

and I didn’t because I love physics in a way that

I never really loved anything else, and life is long,

you’ve got to do something you like.

I mean, I could teach people to do something else,

I could teach them how to make a pie or ride a bike

or something and I think I’d probably be

pretty good at that, but I couldn’t do it day in

and day out, I couldn’t sit up late grading exams

for that, because I’m just not passionate about it.